Does it EVER end???

Well, it seems that it never ends, not for me!!! First I lose Bobby, my hubby October 17, 2008. Then I lose my Sambam on February 21, 2009. Now I'm losing my home I shared with Bobby and Sambam for 3 years. I don't have the money to pay the rent or bills. I didn't get my SSI check this month due to an "investigation" on the moneys I won at the casino. They've requested I send in all the receipts, 1099s or whatever they're called, etc. That in itself, is a chore, finding all that again.

The apartments will be sending me to court anytime and setting a court date, where I will appear and have to surrender the property to them, because I don't have money to pay them.

Then I believe I'll have 48 hours to get out after the Sheriff posts the notice on the door or gives to me, not sure how that works. I have never been evicted. :(

I don't have any money to get a hotel for me and Rosie, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I pray they will get me my next SSI check, along with the backpay, once they figure out that I've paid the last few years for the months I had won money. I was down to about $800 owed from about $13,000 because they took 10% out of every check, every month.

I guess this is another "woe is me" post. But it helps me to vent.

I thought I already had somewhere to live, with a friend of mine. Said I could pay $150 a month to rent out one of his bedrooms. But now he is saying it's $150 a week!!! I can't pay that, that's more than I pay for this apartment! I made him confirm to me twice, when he said $150 a month. "Are you sure this is monthly and not weekly?" He said "yes, monthly". He had told me he usually charges $100 to rent out a room a month, but since I had a dog, it would be $150 a month. I said that was no problem, I could pay that. I even planned on helping him with his electric and water bills, paying a percentage of it, to help out.

Of course nothing ever works out as planned. I have to go find a bunch of boxes and get to packing and throwing things away, so there's not so much to move. It's amazing how much one (used to be two, until I lost my man to severe pancreatitis, failed liver/kidneys, etc) accumulates in 3 years. I like all of our stuff, especially because they all have little memories. When Bobby would work, he'd always come home with some kind of surprise, a trinket he'd found here or there. He was always so proud of himself, even if it was just marbles to put in my vase that I planned on putting a plant in, only water and marbles. I accidentally broke that vase pouring the marbles in it, after he died. But I can always find another one, I still have the marbles and other small round things he found, like a round die (dice) or a heart the size of a marble, etc.

I'm hoping my brother and my sister-in-law will let me stay with them for a few weeks, possibly a few months, until I find a new home. They already have four dogs and have had complaints, so I'm not sure having Rosie dog will work out. But hopefully since it's temporary, we can stay there. Also, my Dad doesn't like that idea, says that two women in one household is bad news. I'll need to stay with them a few weeks, until I can find somewhere else to live. Hopefully it won't be too stressful, if they allow me to stay.

Well anyways, just thought I'd vent and get this all off my chest for the night so I can sleep.

Wish me luck and please pray for me that everything works out for me and Rosie, that we find a new home.

God Bless Friends,
Samantha

Rest In Peace My Beloved Sambam

I had to put my beloved Sambam down on February 21, 2009. I had spent the night with a friend and when I got home the next morning, Sambam was half paralyzed and couldn't even move. She couldn't even get off her pillow to use the restroom and had been going all over herself. My friend Josh was staying with her and Rosie, petsitting, and I guess Sambam had pooped on his jeans and by her pillow when he let her sleep beside him on the floor by the couch he was sleeping on.

When I went into the room to check on Sambam, she couldn't move. But her eyes said everything! "You're finally here! Help me!" I immediately started calling different vets to see who was cheapest and I didn't have enough cash on hand to have her euthanized. I finally remembered the vet she'd had numerous surgeries with throughout the years and they let me write a postdated check for 6 days, until my check came.

It was the hardest thing I've had to do! They took her into the back room and wouldn't let me go in with her, while they did the catheter and emptied her bowels and kidneys. Sambam screamed and cried unlike I'd ever heard before out of her. I felt so bad for her. She was already so tired and I hated that they put her through that!

When they finally brought her back to me, I cuddled her a moment and told her it was okay and it was all over now and I laid her on the table, wrapped in my mom's robe that I'd saved to bury her in.

Sambam was my mom's dog, but Mom's last words to me were "Take care of my baby!" So I did just that, Sambam lived a long, happy life of 19 long years! I have many precious memories of her and I will always cherish each and every one of them! I was never able to have children, so Sambam was like my first daughter. Rosie is my second, she's a dog I inherited a few years ago, also a miniature dachshund.

Anyways, I talked to Sambam and told her she was a good girl and she always made me happy and that I loved her and that it was okay to go to sleep and go be with Mom in Heaven now. I told her to give my recently deceased hubby Bobby and my mom "sugars" for me and to take care of them until I get there.

I then nodded to the doctor and he gave her the shots and Sambam took her last precious breath. I then asked the doc "Is she gone?" and he said "yes" and I started crying uncontrollably. I'm so glad I was able to hold it together as long as I did, so it didn't scare my Sambam and she was able to go to sleep peacefully and without worry. She really was so so tired, bless her little heart.

I never dreamed how hard that would be!!! So many emotions went through my mind, like what if she was just sick and would've gotten better? What if I had her put down for nothing, etc. But I came back to reality and realized it was her time anyways and I had been planning to have it done that weekend anyways.

I gave her sugars and wrapped her in mom's robe, paid the bill, and took Sambam with me to my Uncle's house, and had her buried there. My dad had made a little coffin box for her to be buried in and we put her in it, dug her grave, I planted some flowers in the dirt above her grave and I cried a whole lot sitting on the ground where my baby was laid to rest.

I miss you Sambam and I love you Baby Girl! I can't wait until I see you at Rainbow Bridge and we can be together again. Rosie dog misses you too baby, she hasn't been the same since you left. I keep telling her that we'll see you again when it is our time to go to Heaven. She is slowly coming back and starting to play a few minutes every now and then. She sure misses her sister that she always looked after!

Rest In Peace My Sambam! Fly and Run With the Angels Baby Girl! Give Mom and Bobby lots of love and sugars for me!!! I miss you so so SOOO much! I am always looking for you by my side and at my feet, and sometime I still see you there or avoid tripping over you when you sneak up on me. Then I realize it was a shoe or a shadow or something and not you. I miss you always by my side and in my lap. There will NEVER be another dog like you, who loved me as much as you did! Rosie is a close second, but she wasn't a puppy who used to ride around in my purse wherever I went or on my shoulders when we'd go "bye-bye" all the time.

Awaiting the Inevitable

I found this poem I'd written in my personal box, it is a poem I'd written when my mother was diagnosed with Lung Cancer (small cell carcinoma). She'd already beat Thyroid Cancer and Ovarian Cancer, but the last one got her. This is a poem I had written, trying to give her strength and courage to continue her fight. I was also trying to convey how much she meant to me and everyone else. I wanted her to beat it, as did everyone else! She didn't even make it a year after their diagnosis. I wrote this in 1999 when I moved back from Reno, Nevada to be with my Mom and family. She died on January 24th, 2000. R.I.P. Mom


Awaiting the Inevitable

A year has passed
Since we were told the news
Of how you'll be going
Before your time is due

I'm still not sure
If I have comprehended
The loss that will come
My time with you suspended

I don't want to mourn you
While you are still here and able
Yet it hurts so much
Awaiting the inevitable

Mother I love you
Please don't go
Fight this demon away
Be the first to say no

Don't let it overcome you
Nor bring you down
Stand up for your rights
Kick it to the ground

Cancer is uncaring
Unfeeling of our sorrows
Growing and feeding
Trying to take you tomorrow

Show it whose boss
Brush it all away
Make the headlines
"Mom fought off cancer today"

I know it is hopeless
Yearning this way
Yet I cannot help it
I want you to stay

So make them all liars
Prove them all wrong
You have more time
Their hypothesis is wrong

Live longer and happier
In these last years
Show them remission
Show them no fears


By Samantha Broaddrick
Copyright © 1999






In Loving Memory
Rest In Peace
I Miss You So Much Mom!

Melba Eileen Johnson (Broaddrick) Glenn
October 7, 1951 - January 24, 2000

Update - My Whereabouts

Hello everyone!

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted to my blog. I've been very busy with my Uncle's surgeries and then my own.

My Uncle Ed has had 4 surgeries to date and they think he is good for years to come now. They didn't have to do the bypass surgery. Instead, they put regular and medicated stents in. He has a total of 7 stents now and should have no more blockages in his heart. I spent lots of hours with him in the hospital, I was the one who stayed 24/7 with him in case he needed anything and so he'd have family by his side. He is doing good now, he is still working, has an occasional pressure in his chest from time to time, but nothing like his heart attack. The doctors say due to the damage from the heart attack, he'll always have some kind of angina. He beat the MRSA staff infection for months, but it is back again now. I just found out 2 days ago the MRSA was back! Grrr! I hope he gets rid of it again, as it eats away at his body leaving painful boils all over him. He is doing good otherwise, I thank the Lord for that!

I had a laparascopic assisted vaginal hysterectomy on May 27th. They took out my cervix, uterus, right ovary and right fallopian tube. I was in the hospital 2 days. It was a very painful surgery and I had a few complications afterwards. I had a high fever and woke with my entire top lip covered in fever blisters and swollen. I had terrible gas pains and was unable to use the restroom for days and was so bloated. Felt like I was trying to pass razor blades the size of apples! Very painful! I went back to the dr a week after surgery and they ran tests and did a pelvic exam.. OUCH! Thankfully they didn't find anything seriously wrong, just bruised and extra sore from the surgery. They put me on antibiotics just in case and I felt better a few days later and was able to go back to my apartment FINALLY 10 days after surgery. I stayed with my brother and sister-in-law and she took care of me until I got to go home. I wouldn't have gotten through the surgery/recovery without her! I am forever grateful to her! It is now 12 days after the surgery and I'm finally on the mend! I believe the worst is behind me now.

Anyways, I just haven't posted in so long, have been so busy with life and family. I will try to come back soon and post again. Take Care all!

My Uncle Had a Heart Attack on Jan 15th

Hiya friends! {{{{{{{{{BIG HUGS}}}}}}}}}}}

Sorry I haven't been around. I haven't been feeling well for one thing.

The other is serious... my Uncle Ed, who just turned 65 this year (who I call Uncle Dad or Uncle Dude, he is the one who raised me and my two brothers) had a heart attack on January 15th when he was doing a remodeling job in Arkansas. He never had any signs of problems, it just hit him one day at work. My Dad noticed the signs, as he has problems with blockages, angina, etc and gave my uncle nitro twice and an aspirin before the ambulance arrived, he saved his life by doing so. The ambulance gave him another dose of nitro on the way to the hospital. He was then sent to another hospital after he was stabilized that had a cath lab. The 2nd hospital did emergency angioplasty surgery to check for blockages, etc and found many problems. They were unable to do any stents or anything because he had 4 arteries that were terribly blocked. The main artery, called the "widowmaker" is 98/99% blocked, another is 97% blocked, another 92% blocked, and the 4th is like 85% blocked. He has also contracted the MRSA staff infection somehow, so they have been unable to do ANY type of surgery since, being afraid the infection would spread and get to his heart and then they said he wouldn't have a chance. The only way they would do surgery is if he had another heart attack and then they'd do the emergency bypass surgery and hope for the best.

Anyways, he's been in the hospital in Pine Bluff, Arkansas since January 15th, still there, and he has undergone antibiotics intravaneously (IV) and also blood thinners, fluids, taking a high blood pressure pill twice a day now (he's never had high blood pressure until this) and they are going to do surgery at 9am January 28th to put a stent in his main artery that is 98/99% blocked. Then they plan on keeping him for a few more days, until Wednesday the 30th and then we'll get to take him back home to Tulsa, Oklahoma. We're praying for a quick surgery with no problems and that this stent will help him not have another heart attack before he finds a surgeon to do his bypass surgery in Tulsa.

He has to go through a 5 hour drive back to Tulsa from Arkansas and he's very sore from being laid up in a hospital bed, but he will be glad to be back home and sleep in his own bed for a few days. Depending on how long until we can get him in to see a surgeon to do his bypass surgery. It is also dependant on if his MRSA infection is gone completely too. I guess he will always be a carrier, as he contracted it before, but got rid of it. But it's came back. Grrr! The nurse says the type of work he does is probably the cause of getting it in the first place. He remodels homes, businesses, etc and is always handling the nasty stuff, gutting the inside of buildings, etc. Dirty dirty!

I will be leaving tomorrow, Sunday Jan 27th with my father to go back to Pine Bluff, Arkansas so I can be there for his stent surgery and then help take care of him until he gets to come back home.

I was there the day he had his heart attack until January 20th, helping take care of him, and would still be there, but I had to come home to get all my medications and pick up my pain medications that couldn't be faxed or called in. Grrr! You'd think in emergency situations there should/could be a way around that, but nopes. I've been wanting to go back to him every day, but my car won't make it and nobody else has driven that way, so I couldn't catch a ride. But now I have one with my father tomorrow and will be by my Uncle Ed's side again and there if he needs me.

I just wanted to update everyone on where I've been and what's been going on.

Please say prayers for my Uncle, he's going to need them, as he has some tough surgeries and then a very serious one coming up, the triple/quadruple bypass. I am so scared and don't know what I'd do without him in my life and pray to God he makes it through this. He is very strong and healthy otherwise, so I'm sure he'll be fine, but I can't help worrying, along with everyone else. My uncle is my hero, my idol, he is the one I wrote about in my About Me page. He is always there if you need help, no questions asked. He never does things for himself, but for his family. He gets enjoyment out of seeing his family/blood learn or have fun (like fishing, hunting, fixing cars, etc). He works like a dog every day from the time he gets up, until the time he falls asleep in bed exhausted at night. He is my hero and I love him so much.

We need all the prayers we can get for him right now and for a speedy recovery after his bypass surgery.

Thanks all, ahead of time, for the prayers for him...I miss all of you!

Much Love,
Samantha

Your String On My Heart

You control my every emotion
with your piece of string
You can make me fly
with beautiful wings

Yet as your mood strikes
without a thought
You pull so tight
and pull at my heart

Your string either steals my air
or fills me full of hope
Like pushing my buttons
My thoughts you provoke

Must we go on in this way
In light, then in dark
Let me be free from
your string on my heart

One bad little bug!

On a normal hot summer's day when I was about four or five years old, I was playing in the backyard at my Aunt Arlene's house. As I was playing around in the bushes, I got something in my eye. It hurt something terrible and I kept rubbing and rubbing it and couldn't get it to stop hurting. I felt something big and a big bump right in the middle under my eyelid. I ran into the house to look in the mirror and screamed when I discovered some kind of small black bug that looked like a ladybug, round, but more like a beetle in color and hardness. My mother and aunt Arlene came running to see what was wrong and I was still screaming trying to get this bug off of and out of my eye. I was freaking out like when I'd see a spider. Jumping up and down, flinging my arms, freaking out like any child or adult would do when scared from a snake or spider. This little bug was clinging onto my pupil, right in the center of my eye. It covered my entire pupil, all you could see was the brown of my eyes. I must have rubbed it so much and hard that I embedded it into my eye somehow or it was just holding on with it's legs, that you couldn't see.

Mom and aunt Arlene laid me down on the bathroom counter and got out the tweezers and were doing their own surgery on my eye. I remember them trying to pour cold water into my eye and the chlorine in the water burned so bad. I was crying and screaming, kicking, and scared to death. They finally got the tweezers to grip onto the little creature and got it out of my eye.

I do not remember anything after that. But I am now blind in my left eye. What I do see, I see double and if I look out of my left eye for very long, it just blacks out. It starts as a little black circle and the darkness gets bigger and bigger until I cannot see a thing.

I oftentimes wish they would have done the appropriate thing and taken me straight to an emergency room. But would it have made any difference? Had I already done too much damage due to rubbing and rubbing it and trying to push, rub, and get it out of my own eye? Did they do damage with the tweezers? Or had the little bugger dug its little legs into my pupil doing it's own damage? Was it the hard, outer shell of the bug that causes me to see a black circle before everything blacks out?

I will never know the answers, but I remember it as if it was yesterday. When I asked my mother later in life when I was in my twenties, she told me that no such thing ever happened, that I must have dreamt it all. She says I was born that way. Was she in denial or feeling guilty for removing it on her own and not taking me to the hospital? Another answer I will never know, she is now deceased.

I remember later as a child being at my uncle's house where I was more or less raised. He took me into his arms, we were in the front yard. He told me to close my eyes and then walked me to a different place in the yard. It was actually the back side of the house. There's school grounds behind his two and a half acre fenced-in yard that was filled with almost a hundred bright yellow school buses. He told me to keep my right eye covered with my hand and to open my left eye and asked me where we were in the yard. I opened my left eye and could see nothing but a big black circle. I couldn't focus or tell where I was at all. That is when we discovered I was legally blind in my left eye. I must have been six or seven years old by then.

They had taken me to numerous eye doctors and they all told us that we had to wait until I was older to get it fixed. That I had a "lazy eye". But when I grew older, the doctors said it should have been fixed when I was younger. It was a no-win situation from the day it happened.

Did I really dream this or did the bug really cause the blindness in my left eye? I will never know. But I would bet a lot of money that it really happened. A four or five year old child remembers something so scary and so real. I will never forget the feeling of that round, hard shell in my eye and how I felt it with my finger under my eyelid. I'll always remember the hard marble counter they laid me on in the bathroom and the bright lights above as they leaned over me doing their own surgery on me. I still get chills and freaked out feelings when I think of that little bug implanting itself in my pupil.